Labour Campaign - Howick Local Board

23.September 2016.

PRESS RELEASE:

Is Breaking the Council by-laws a hallmark of National Party campaigning?

Desperation has become the hallmark of the National Party supported local body grouping, “Vision & Voice”, in the Howick Ward as they face a determined campaign from both the local Labour Party and other individual challenging their hold on the Howick Local Board.

Despite several warnings from ATEED and the Auckland Council bylaw enforcement team the “Vision and Voice” team, consisting of several senior members of the local Police force, local businessmen and the wife of the Botany National Party MP, continue to be recidivist breakers of the Council bylaws on the erection and placement of election signs. The by laws were mandated to prevent candidates creating traffic hazards with signs obstructing traffic along arterial routes and near major intersections but the “Vision & Voice” team apparently feel the by-laws do not apply to them and continue to create traffic hazards throughout the Ward.

The Council has issued warnings to all the candidates and campaign teams about the use of such berm based signage - including the sitting Councillors, Quax and Stewart, who, to give them credit, immediately stopped their offending.

Unfortunately for the ratepayers and voters in the Howick Ward the “Vision & Voice” team have continued to ignore the warnings which must lead the voters to ask: “ If the “Vision & Voice” group are prepared to break the law in their desperation to cling to power should they be seen as credible representatives of the community and its values?”

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